In this article, Judge BrunoSimma reviews the different ways in which the International Court of Justice has dealt with human rights. This examination is based to a significant extent on the author's direct experience of the work of the Court during his tenure at the Court. Underlying the treatment of the subject matter are two basic questions:...

In this article, Judge BrunoSimma reviews the different ways in which the International Court of Justice has dealt with human rights. This examination is based to a significant extent on the author's direct experience of the work of the Court during his tenure at the Court. Underlying the treatment of the subject matter are two basic questions: first, has the development of international human rights law had an impact on the jurisprudence of the Court? Secondly, and vice versa, has the jurisprudence of the Court contributed to this development and if yes, how? The author's analysis shows two phases in the engagement of the Court with human rights matters: a long first phase marked by a certain restraint on the part of the Court, and a second phase marked by recent developments indicating a greater degree of readiness to have the Court decide straightforward human rights questions. The author comes to the conclusion that the human rights genie has escaped from the bottle and on that basis reflects on prospects for the future and on the proper role of the court with regard to human rights. Minimize

The ESIL Conference at which this article was originally presented as the Keynote Speech was devoted to the topic of “International Law in a Heterogeneous World”. The article attempts to demonstrate that heterogeneity does not exclude the universality of international law, as long as the law retains – and further develops – its capacity to accom...

The ESIL Conference at which this article was originally presented as the Keynote Speech was devoted to the topic of “International Law in a Heterogeneous World”. The article attempts to demonstrate that heterogeneity does not exclude the universality of international law, as long as the law retains – and further develops – its capacity to accommodate an ever larger measure of such heterogeneity. After developing three different conceptions, or levels, of what the term ‘universality’ of international law is intended to capture, the article focuses on international rules, (particularly judicial) mechanisms, and international institutions which serve the purpose of reconciling heterogeneous values and expectations by means of international law. The article links a critical evaluation of these ways and means with the different notions of universality by inquiring how they cope with the principal challenges faced by these notions. In so doing, it engages a number of topics which have become immensely popular in contemporary international legal writing, here conceived as challenges to universality: the so-called ‘fragmentation’ of international law; in close connection with this first buzzword the challenges posed by what is called the ‘proliferation’ of international courts and tribunals; and, finally, certain recent problems faced by individuals who find themselves at the fault lines of emerging multi-level international governance. The article concludes that these challenges have not prevented international law from forming a (by and large coherent) legal system. Most concerns about the dangers of fragmentation appear overstated. As for the ‘proliferation’ of international judicial institutions, the debate on fragmentation has made international judges even more aware of the responsibility they bear for a coherent construction of international law. They have managed to develop a set of tools for coping with the undesirable results of both phenomena. Despite some evidence of competition among international courts for ‘institutional hegemony’, such competition has hitherto been marked by a sense of responsibility on the part of all concerned. Thus, from the viewpoint of a practitioner, the universality of international law is alive and well; there is no need to force the law into the Procrustean bed of ‘constitutionalization’. Minimize